Welcome to this September newsletter from the Customer Union for Ethical Banking, the independent union for customers of The Co-operative Bank.
In this newsletter, save the date for our Gathering! Plus a round-up of recent news, and a call for new board members.
Our gathering: 16th November
It will soon be time for our annual Gathering, which we will again hold online via Zoom. This year we have all been focused on Coventry Building Society’s deal to buy the Co-op Bank, returning it to mutual ownership. So we’re very pleased to announce that we expect to have representatives from both the Co-op Bank and Coventry BS joining us for the Gathering. Join to take your chance to put any questions and concerns to both businesses. We’ll also have a discussion about the plans we made last year around the research element of our crowdfunder, before everything changed with the merger, and how we’re planning to adapt.
This year’s Gathering will be held on the afternoon of Saturday 16th November. The AGM (Customer Union members only - see below on how to join) will start at 1pm followed by the Gathering (open to all) from 2pm.
You can register now by clicking on the button below.
Co-op Bank news round-up
Both the bank and the building society have posted financial results for the first half of this year which showed a fall in profits. Here’s This is Money on the Co-op and The Standard on Coventry. Both stories mention, in near-identical wording, the impact of higher borrowing costs beginning to wear off for banks, which had benefited from charging more for loans - and in some cases additional profits have been made by being slow in passing on rate increases to savers. Both the Co-op and Coventry have also posted substantial increases in mortgage lending.
Meanwhile, Coventry chief executive Steve Hughes is quoted at Insider as saying the building society is "making good progress to complete the acquisition of The Co-operative Bank in the first quarter of 2025."
The Co-op Bank’s Regular Saver account, offering 7% interest for existing customers, was recently flagged as offering one of the best rates on the market. See Birmingham News.
The bank is also topping tables for less encouraging reasons: in the latest customer satisfaction survey from the Consumer and Markets Authority, it made the top three in the list of “worst current account providers”. See MoneyWeek or the CMA’s own press release for more. Mind you, it is worth noting that the CMA doesn’t take into account ‘customer satisfaction’ with the funding of fossil fuel projects in a climate emergency in its analyses of who is ‘worst’.
Would you like to join the Board of the Customer Union?
If you’re the kind of person who reads these emails all the way to the last part, perhaps you would also be interested in getting more involved and joining our board?
The Customer Union is managed by a board made up of members, who are elected once a year at our general meetings and help to set our strategic direction. We currently have room for more people to join our board. Anyone who is a member of the Customer Union can put themselves forward – the main things we are looking for are enthusiasm and ideas.
If you would like to join the board, or are interested but would like to ask questions first, please let us know by emailing info@saveourbank.coop.
That’s all for this month’s newsletter; thank you as ever for reading and supporting the Union.
And by the way, if you enjoyed this newsletter, why not share it on LinkedIn, Facebook or X, and tag us there? This can help us reach new audiences, gain members and be a stronger union.
With best wishes,
The Save Our Bank team
Have you joined the Customer Union yet? It costs £15 a year to be a member of the first ever customer union co-operative, and help us ensure the Co-op Bank sticks to its principles. It only takes a few moments to sign up here.
info@saveourbank.coop
@SaveOurBank
@saveourbank
